Excerpt from Messiah Pulpit, New York, Vol. 4: Being a Continuation of Unity Pulpit, Boston

Bible. But perhaps there are persons here who will wonder whether it is not a lecture, or a secular address, because Lincoln happened to live since the writing of the Bible was completed. But, as I have said concerning the words, no finer can be read in any Scripture, so I say concerning Lincoln. Leaving one side the central character, the Nazarene, there is no man mentioned in the Bible, from the first verse of Genesis to the last of Revelation, who can be regarded as Lincoln's superior, either for greatness or for goodness. And, since God is ultimately the author of all Scripture and the Creator of all grand characters, may we not find a sermon in some one of his higher and finer, be cause later, creations? Let us then put aside all question or thought or criticism of this nature, and note some of the salient and instructive incidents in his career and the feat ures of his character.

Since his death we have learned facts in regard to his origin, the blood that flowed in his veins, with which he him self was not familiar. It is sometimes said that arman is the product of inheritance and of environment. Undoubtedly, in some large and general way this is true and yet we can not carry out an idea like this in any minute fashion. A poet does not necessarily give birth to poets for children; and men born in the midst of poetical surroundings are not always distinguished for the possession of poetic gifts. Yet, in some large and general way, this is true.

What blood, then, flowed in the veins of Lincoln? He was English, and New England sifted through the South. From a Norfolk family in England we trace the stream to Salem, Hingham, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ken tucky, Illinois. Sometimes the stream ran faint and feeble. Sometimes it was underground. Then, again, it came to the light. Sometimes it was muddy. Sometimes it was clear. But, at the last, it sprung up into a fountain of life and health and healing for the nation.

You are familiar with the schooling of Lincoln's povertyduring his childhood. I am no friend of poverty. If it be true that the poor we have always with us, I accept it as a fact, but count it a misfortune rather than a blessing. I have been too well acquainted with it myself to have any love for it. But we need to distinguish between the kind of poverty which Lincoln endured and that which marks the slums of our great cities, that poverty which is close akin to deceit, to theft, to vice, to beggary, to evil of every kind. Lincoln knew nothing of poverty such as that. His was that healthy, outdoor poverty of the frontier, which struggles grimly, sometimes desperately, with adverse conditions, but which has health, at least, for a possibility in the physical veins, and does not carry with it the temptation to degrading vices, does not carry with it any taint of sycophancy, beggary, and degeneration of the moral nature. Lincoln was a poor boy, who struggled against every kind of obstacle, and educated himself only because he had in him a thirst for knowledge.

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